I’d stand outside restaurants pretending to stare at my phone while my family and friends munched on dessert. There would be days when I would be completely broken from the inside-out after training with weights in the morning and running a 2k in the evening on no fuel. I’d find excuses to stay at home on the weekends and give up meeting friends only to stay away from food and drinks which didn’t align with my goal. I got used to awkward situations while placing ‘weird’ food orders at restaurants and stares from coworkers while shaking up my protein mix.

Bodyweight training builds an excellent muscular foundation. After I built my six pack abs with bodyweight training, I wanted to build more muscle so I started lifting weights. 4 months after I started weightlifting, I was deadlifting 460 pounds, bench pressing 275 pounds, squatting 365 pounds and military pressing 175 pounds. I owe this incredibly fast progress to the foundation I built with bodyweight training. (If you don’t believe me, read Arnold Schwarzenegger’s biography that documents his bodybuilding career (which I reviewed here) and you’ll see that he also recommends newbies to start building muscle with bodyweight training.)

“A silly thing I do on a daily basis is focus on sitting or standing tall with good posture and then ‘sucking it in,’ for lack of a better term. Basically, I tighten my core and hold onto it for as long as I can, and I keep doing that throughout the day. It’s a great way to not feel like a lump while sitting in front of a computer for a long period of time, and it’s like a bonus workout for my abs.” —Dorothy Beal, @mileposts

First up is the diet. This will become your most important component because it takes the most discipline, and if you’re not getting rid of the fat and water, then your abs are going to seem more like a two-pack. With the diet, don’t drastically cut carbs—instead burn them. Keep carbs constant until your abs are truly ready to be seen, then a quick cut will rip out the final drops of water. This is the biggest mistake I’ve seen, dropping carbs too fast and too much, which reduces energy and forces “skinny fat” syndrome instead of good fat burning. Increase your protein to an additional 50-60g per day and amino acid intake to 10-20g per day of supplementation; do this while increasing your veggie intake, so that you can get your calorie count where it needs to be to shed the excess poundage. To reduce excess water weight, add natural diuretic-based products that have dandelion and green tea extract and uva ursi and cranberry. Also, make sure to hit a fat burner that cooperates with your gut, and keep tabs on your indulgences. When you’re out, resist the urge to consume heavy or sugary drinks and fatty foods. Lastly, eat several smaller meals each day to maintain fuel and curb appetite.

Common knowledge will tell you that, to get six-pack abs, carbs are verboten. Common knowledge is right—kind of. The key is to avoid the wrong carbs, like French fries, and eat the right carbs, like sweet potatoes. These orange goodies are full of carotenoids, which prevent calories from turning into fat; fiber, which helps you stay sated, and ultimately eat less; and Vitamin C, which’ll give you energy (for working out). And for more ab-shredding foods, check out the 10 Healthy Carbs That Won’t Derail Your Six-Pack. BMI vs Body Fat Percentage- Body Mass Index or BMI calculates your ideal weight in relation to your height. This isn’t a great way of determining whether someone is healthy because it completely ignores how much muscle an individual holds. A better alternative is determining your Body Fat Percentage -BFP and then take a cue from your BMI as to how healthy you are. Here’s a visual comparison of how different body fat percentages look like. You can get your BFP measured by a Bio-electrical Impedance Scale found at gyms or at a nutritionist’s clinic.
I am older turning 65 this year. I did the diet stuff about 8 years ago. In 2010 or so I was about 170 I had lost over 40 lbs. I was too sedentary. My diet which is more a way of life is mostly white meat. Milk must be skim, Drink water no soda. Eat lots of whole grains, veggies, nuts, seeds etc. Noticed maybe over a year ago if I breathed in I could see some abs. Now I don’t need to breath in. I have a handicap so am limited at the gym but do leg raises and use abdominal machines at the gym.I call mine a minor 6 pac.I don’t raise my shirt at the gym lol but have had a few stares from others as I guess you can see them through my shirt. So I think it does have a lot to do with diet but exercise will make them more prominent. Last but not least, it is essential to get enough sleep if you want to get the six pack you have always dreamed of. As an adult, you should sleep between 7 and 8 hours per night. People who don’t sleep enough are more prone to obesity, when you don’t sleep properly your the hormones for regulating your body’s appetite are all out of whack. Get a good night’s sleep and you’ll find it much easier to stick to a healthy diet.
BMI vs Body Fat Percentage- Body Mass Index or BMI calculates your ideal weight in relation to your height. This isn’t a great way of determining whether someone is healthy because it completely ignores how much muscle an individual holds. A better alternative is determining your Body Fat Percentage -BFP and then take a cue from your BMI as to how healthy you are. Here’s a visual comparison of how different body fat percentages look like. You can get your BFP measured by a Bio-electrical Impedance Scale found at gyms or at a nutritionist’s clinic.

On hardwood or tiled floor, place feet on two sliders and assume a high plank position (hands under shoulders, soft bend in elbows, butt and core engaged). Pull feet in toward chest, bending knees until you’re in a bear plank, knees below hips, but still lifted off floor. Slowly push feet back to high plank. Continue to repeat. To make it easier, move one leg at a time.

To do it:Get into pushup position with both hands on the stability ball directly below your shoulders (your feet can be slightly wider than shoulder-width apart to give you extra stability). Contract your abdominals and try to bring your body into a straight line from your neck all the way to you toes (your butt should not be sticking out, so contract your glutes and keep your hips down). Once you are stable, lift your right leg a few inches off the ground and hold for 10 seconds. Repeat on the other side. Try to do three sets of a 10-second hold, and then advance to a 30-second hold. The math is simple: keeping your calories down is a surefire way to keep your weight down. But make sure you don’t dip too low. Eating too little can slow down your metabolism, which can have adverse effects on your body. “It doesn’t know when the next meal is,” says Shapiro. Put another way: when it comes time for your body to burn off calories, it may hold on to them instead. Think of your body like a furnace. It constantly needs fuel intake to continue burning.

Everyone has six pack abs. They’re there, whether you believe it or not. The problem is that not everyone’s body composition is such that their abs are actually visible. These muscles don’t need to be created – they need to be revealed. Remember our “strongman” example – powerful upper body, mighty arms, and a layer of soft flab around their midsection? Believe me, Mr. Strongman is packing some serious stomach muscles, but like on a lot of us, they’re hidden under layers of adipose tissue. That’s why they’re not visible.

“For me, getting a six-pack was about paying attention to what I was eating and lifting heavy weights at CrossFit. I do have a semi-strict diet, and I loosely count macros (focusing on daily carbs, protein, and fat intake rather than blindly counting calories) to stay balanced and on track. It sounds like a lot of work, but it really isn’t. Eventually, it just became a part of my lifestyle, and it’s something I enjoy doing. I even started a custom meal-plan business based on macros because I had such great results!” —Tina Haupert, @carrotsncake